Are you struggling with your time management? Do you have too much to do? Are you feeling overwhelmed with your workload?  Are you working longer and longer hours? If this is how you are feeling, one area to consider is delegation. Delegation is giving someone else the responsibility and authority to do something you normally do and holding them accountable for doing it. 

What areas of your work could you delegate? Here are some areas you may be able to delegate:

Basic, routine and administrative tasks.  This could be a wide range of tasks such as arranging meetings, recording annual leave requests or preparing your expenses spreadsheet. It is likely that you find doing these tasks very time consuming, so they are a good place to start when deciding what you delegate. What basic, routine and administrative tasks are you currently doing that you could delegate?

Tasks not in your area of expertise. This could be anything that is not within your area of expertise such as sales and marketing or data analysis. It is likely that you are finding these tasks challenging and taking a long time to complete them as you are not really qualified to be doing them. What tasks are you doing that are not in your area of expertise that you could delegate?

Tasks that are in someone else's job description. This may be as a result of not trusting the other person to complete the task, feeling that they are not capable of doing the task or you have always done it up to now. Are you doing tasks that are in someone else's job description that you could delegate to them?

Tasks you like doing. This could be a whole range of things such as having lunch with a supplier because in your prior role you were their contact or ordering the office supplies. What tasks are you doing because you like doing them that you could delegate to others?

Making decisions. If all decisions are taken by you, you will be a bottleneck in the company and will be interrupted by people throughout the day wanting decisions. This will all take a lot of your time. What decision making could you delegate to others in the company? Consider developing an authority grid that involves only major decisions coming to you.

Task that are not essential. It is surprising how much time is wasted on non essential tasks. You could be doing a task that is no longer needed or analysing data that can be analysed by a system. What are you doing that is non essential that you can stop doing?

By delegating  some of the tasks you are currently doing you will improve your time management and productivity.

How to find out more?

If you want to explore time management further, you can take one of our time management online courses on Learn Formula and CPD Formula ‘Time management for life’ or ‘Time management for business owners, directors & managers’.